It is known that agricultural sprayers are machines that are widely used to spray a treatment product onto plants as small droplets, for example, phytosanitary products or pesticides that prevent the action of plagues or destroy them directly, as well as being intended for defoliation, desiccation or regulation of plant growth.
For example, Patent document EP 1172034, published on 16 Jan. 2002, shows an agricultural sprayer comprising a chassis that supports, on the one hand a tank containing treatment slurry, and on the other hand a plurality of spraying nozzles disposed at substantially regular intervals over a sprayer boom.
When the spraying is performed, the agricultural sprayer is moved following an advancing direction over a field that contains plants to be treated. The sprayer boom is disposed crosswise to said advancing direction, on both sides of a middle vertical plane of said sprayer, spraying the treatment slurry over the plants to be treated.
The sprayer boom is supported by a latticed metal structure the lower bar of which supports the spraying nozzles. Said latticed structure is advantageously shortened into articulated sections. Therefore, said sprayer boom may be folded at several parts to reduce the total width of the sprayer for transport.
Known sprayer boom supports have the disadvantage of being very heavy, since they are manufactured in metal. In fact, given the weight of the material they are manufactured with, they require a latticed structure in order to maintain the horizontality required in the lower bar, which supports the spraying nozzles. All that latticed metal structure implies a great weight, which limits the length of the structure due to buckling and the vibrations that occur when the sprayer circulates during work in the field.
The buckling along with vibrations produces breakage in the structure that requires taking the sprayer out of the field and taking it to a workshop to correct the breakage by welding, with the resulting loss of working time.
The weight of the latticed structure also affects the speed at which the sprayer can perform. Going very fast may lead to breakage of the structure and the known loss of time and resources.
Similarly, the weight of the structure has an effect when turning at the end of the field. The inertia of the latticed structure hinders the turn and it is necessary to almost stop in order to guide the sprayer in the right direction.
On the other hand, the treatment products that are sprayed are highly corrosive, which promotes deterioration of the metal with which the structure is manufactured and favours breakage.
There is thus a need to design a sprayer boom support that allows eliminating the aforementioned drawbacks, achieving plant treatment with greater yield and efficiency.